Inside Libya's Chaotic, Secretive Rebel Leadership

While defected generals struggle to lead an army, eastern Libyan civilians find a provisional government marred by secrecy and disarray

BENGHAZI, Libya -- As volunteers streamed in to sign up to serve in the
liberation army in Benghazi, many were likely preparing themselves to
join the full fledged battle raging at the front line between
rebels and the forces of Muammar Qaddafi, somewhere between the towns of
Ras Lanouf and Bin Jawwad, where regular air and ground attacks taxed their
nerves and supplies.

On Friday, the nearby munitions depot at Rajma, the
largest the eastern army has easy access to, was leveled by explosions
of still-unknown origin. The loss struck a blow to the opposition army,
which is struggling to hold ground in Ras Lanouf as they try to push
westward towards Cert. The Transitional National Council, the
self-appointed military leadership of the eastern army, is investigating
the event, which they say could have been sabotage. The explosion, the
threat of pro-Qaddafi saboteurs, the assault to the west, and Qaddafi's
counter-attacks are just some of the challenges facing this new and
secretive military leadership body, most of which defected from
Qaddafi's army only days or weeks ago.

General Omar Hariri was confirmed
as the head of the Military Council at a press conference on March 5,
but the lines of his authority are difficult to discern in this
haphazard and still uncertain command structure. His control is even
less clear in the field of battle, where defected soldiers and civilian
volunteers come together in a poorly disciplines, frequently chaotic
rebel army.

The days following the explosions at Rajma brought
-- or perhaps exposed -- confusion among the rebel military
organization. Saturday was a rough day for 36-year-old Khaled Al-Sai'ih,
the civilian coordinator between the National Libyan Council (the
public face of the opposition, announced on February 27) and the
military council, the membership of which remains secret for, they say,
security reasons.

At the Lawyers' Union of Benghazi, where the
eastern leadership meets, Al-Sai'ih was escorted by a young man carrying
not one but two Kalashnikov rifles. Walking the halls of the courthouse
between locked-door meetings, he tried to juggle the journalists,
assistants, and volunteers asking him questions, pulling on his sleeve
and handing him mobile phones and sheaves of paper. Asked if he liked
the job, Al-Sai'ih gestured towards someone who was shaking a phone at
him urgently. "Not this part," he said. The front door of the courthouse
was locked for the first time in days. Outside, a crowd of people
waited to enter and meet with their new government. One man in fatigues,
pounding his fists against the door, shouted himself hoarse.

Al-Sai'ih
insisted that the membership of the military council, including its
leader, is "classified and confidential." The military prosecutors
charged with investigating the explosions at the Rajma depot also cannot
be named, he said. Of the civilian volunteer soldiers, he said, "a lot
of them have done national service before. They are not totally
untrained." He said that the volunteers and the defectors from Qaddafi's
army "are all working together, they are all coming together to fight."

Al-Sai'ih was quickly exasperated by the questioning. "A
spokesman will be announced at the press conference in a few minutes.
Enough? Finished?" He turned around and left without looking back,
surrounded by men whispering in his ear and pulling him along. Five
minutes later, a courthouse volunteer said the conference had been
cancelled and "it should happen tomorrow. Maybe around 1 o'clock, I
don't know."

A press conference was eventually held at the
Tibisti Hotel, but was ill attended because few journalists knew where
it was, when it was, or that it would take place at all. Omar Hariri was
announced the head of the 13-person military council. An official said
that Hariri was unavailable for questions because he was busy meeting
with the commandos unit of the army.

General Attia Saleh, who
had served in Libya's army for 32 years and is now a member of the
Transitional Government's Military Council, tried to explain the new
organization. "Hundreds of new volunteers come in every day," he said.
"They are trained in four or five camps here in Benghazi."

"The
old army members and the new volunteers all work together. The head of
the military council gives orders about who should go where depending on
the situation, and there are units made up of new volunteers and
trained military," Saleh said. "The trained army members are in charge,
but sometimes we lose people and weapons at the front lines because they
go in without orders. Three people were caught yesterday at Bin Jawwad
because they went ahead without orders. The volunteers can be
excitable."

"Every day the council sends new weapons, and there
are weapons stored in many places other than Rajma. Tanks have gone to
Ras Lanouf, and General Wanis Bokhamada is in charge there now," he
explained.

Foreign intervention, he said, is unwelcome. "We
don't want other countries to send us soldiers, but we want weapons from
other countries, especially Arab countries."

"Most of the
Libyan military from Masa'ad to Brega don't want Qaddafi," Saleh said,
and then corrected himself. "All of them. No one in the east is for
Qaddafi."

Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

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Clare Morgana Gillis is a freelance journalist based in the Middle East. She recently completed her PhD in history at Harvard University.